- rpsmusicawards.com

Latest News

Beware of 'cool'

Grayson Perry at the RPS Music Awards

Speaking at the 21st Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards in London Grayson Perry gave a heart-felt, and very funny, plea for musicians to avoid trying to be 'cool' and for people to recognise the importance of difficulty in the arts.

"Cool is a word that often crops up in describing art and artists, and it’s always been a bit of a term that’s bugged me. The minute something is described as cool, my instincts tell me it’s on the wane. For me, being creative as an artist, it’s all about being unselfconscious and being prepared to make a bit of a fool of myself. That’s a very important thing. And cool, in a nutshell, is the opposite of that. In my experience, embarrassment is not fatal. Coolness somehow implies that there is a ‘right thing to do’, whereas creativity is making mistakes...

...When I listen to a piece of classical music, what makes me well-up is not just the melody, the sublime melody of a sensitive interpretation by the musicians, it is the thought of the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of practice. The philosopher Richard Sennett – himself a musician – puts it at 10,000 hours, to become good at something. 10,000 hours. That’s four years of full time study. I find that moving in itself: that there are people dedicated to that. I’m in awe of the rigour, and a bit jealous actually of musicians; you seem to have a much clearer vision of what you’re aiming at. In art nowadays there’s that terrible thing that anything can go, and it does make me a bit sad sometimes.

So, please keep doing insanely difficult things. Please continue to make difficult music that I will aspire to understand, and please do it for the love of it. For here in the arts, we have to set a good example."

Watch the speech

Full text

Read an edited version in the Guardian

Listen to Grayson's speech on BBC Radio 3 till 19 May 2010